Lucan's Pharsalia.

Large paper issue. A large paper issue of Lucan's epic poem Pharsalia on the Roman civil war, translated into English by the dramatist Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718).

Widely regarded as the best edition of Lucan, Dr Johnson proclaimed it 'one of the greatest productions of English poetry' (Poets, 2.77) — Rowe, who had spent twenty years working on the translation, died just prior to its publication. With illustrations after Louis Chéron, and a double-page map of the Roman world at the time of Caesar's revolt extending from Germania Magna in the north to Libia Exterior in the south, and from Hispania in the west to Mesopotamia in the east.

Large paper issue; folio (410 x 265 mm); engraved frontispiece, engraved vignettes, woodcut initials, head and tailpieces, double-page map, lacking French dedication (as is typical), lightly toned throughout, historic worm to upper margins of 6M1-6O2, endpapers split at joints; later panelled calf, contrasting morocco lettering-piece in gilt, joints cracked at head and tail but holding, areas of wear to boards and extremities; [6], xxv, [5], 126, [3], 126-446, 55, [1]pp.

ESTC T114104; Foxon, R293.